


that i can fashion fit

by goosemixtapes



Category: King Lear - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Gen, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, edmund is trans he told me himself, if you ship these two do not look at this i will kill you. i will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29832726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goosemixtapes/pseuds/goosemixtapes
Summary: He has to tell Edgar eventually.
Relationships: Edgar & Edmund (King Lear)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	that i can fashion fit

**Author's Note:**

> i will repeat: if you ship edgar and edmund i will stomp you to death with my FUCKING hooves. i will beat you with your own bones. they are brothers they are BROTHERS
> 
> anyway edmund from king lear is trans he told me himself

The problem is Edgar. The problem is always Edgar - Edgar and his late nights and his foggy days and his irritatingly artless smile and the bass notes in his laugh that mark him as his father’s son. His father’s legitimate son. It’s hard to determine which word rankles Edmund more. Perhaps it doesn’t matter; the words are inextricable. There is no Edgar that isn’t  _ Gloucester’s legitimate son _ . It’s all wrapped up in all of him and it all grates on Edmund’s nerves and Edgar, as a whole, as a composite figure, is the problem - in general and right now, Edgar and his inability to sleep through a single night without getting up and pacing around the house and catching Edmund quite off guard beside the unlit fireplace.

The moon is a mere sliver; midnight passed hours ago. In the dark doorway Edgar is a blurry shape recognizable only by virtue of being the tallest in the house, far too tall for seventeen. For a moment he only hovers. Edmund, crouched on the ground, dares to hope that he hasn’t seen him — and the hoping must be what does it, because Edgar can never obey Edmund’s hopes, and he calls the cursed name out into the room like a question. As if it could be anyone else; as if their father would be up this late without a candle, sitting against the wall staring out into space.

He calls it quietly, because it’s the middle of the night, but the name still makes Edmund flinch. He presses himself backward into the wall. He hopes Edgar will not come close enough to actually look at him. He hopes, uselessly, that Edgar will just leave him alone, and then Edgar calls out again, “——, is that you?” and with a flare of irritation Edmund hisses back, “Who else would it be, Edgar, will you keep your voice down?”

Edgar, being Edgar, and predisposed to do whatever Edmund wants least, slips into the room and comes over to sit down beside him. He’s wearing his overcoat; he must have gone out. Maybe only to look at the stars, because he doesn’t smell like drink and soldiers; he smells like crisp clean night.

“——,” he says softly, “what’s the matter,” and then he tilts his head and looks sideways at Edmund and says, “Good God, what have you done?”

Edmund’s hands jump to his hair, even as he spins toward the wall and says, “Nothing.”

He is glad for the dark, because it hides his blush. But he can’t be ashamed of what he has done — not really. Not with the new loose lightness haloing his head, where his curls once waterfalled past his shoulders, dark and thick and heavy as chains.

And then Edgar’s hand is on his face. Edmund startles a little, nearly grabs his wrist, because it comes so out of nowhere — Edgar doesn’t touch him. Edgar never touches him. Edgar doesn’t touch anyone, except occasionally when their father slings an arm around him at court and Edgar can’t weasel away so he settles for standing there and looking itchy. But here they are now with Edmund pressed against the wall and Edgar’s hand cupping his chin, and Edgar’s hands are startlingly cold, and he turns Edmund’s face so that Edmund will look him in the eyes, and even in the low light Edmund can see his eyes are moon-wide as he says, “You’ve cut all your hair off.”

Edmund’s eyes flit to the floor. Edgar’s gaze follows his to the dagger on the floor, to the curls strewn around it like trophies.

“Just now,” he says, like he can’t fathom that it’s real. “You did this — now. Cut all your hair off.”

Edmund pulls away. He runs his fingers through the choppy curls he has left. “Hardly  _ all _ of it,” he says, and he means for it to sound flippant, careless, cutting even, but it mostly comes out very very quiet.

Edgar lets his hands drop from Edmund’s face and leans back. Edmund should consider this a victory; as soon as the touch is gone he wants it back so fiercely that he bites his own tongue and tastes metal. He crushes himself back up a little further against the wall. Suddenly he feels distinctly like a rabbit in a trap. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to curl his lip in a snarl and drive his fists over and over into Edgar’s (smooth, flat, unmarked) chest, so that Edgar will stop looking at him like he’s watching Edmund shatter.

“Why?” Edgar says. Not like he’s angry. More like he’s begging to understand.

And it flips over, just like that, and suddenly Edmund wants to press himself down so small that he can slip through the cracks in the walls, slip through Edgar’s fingers and run, and he pushes the dagger on the floor away and wraps his hands around his elbows and searches for words and finds none.

“I hate it,” he says finally. “I do.”

“Why?” Edgar repeats. His hand quivers in the air between them. Like he’s thinking about reaching out again, touching Edmund’s face again, and Edmund trembles and hopes that he will. Their father doesn’t touch him. Not even presenting him to the members of the court. He keeps his distance from his bastard daughter, and leaves always a hands’-breath between their bodies.

He shakes his head. The bitterness bleeds into his voice against his will: “It’s no use, you know. His trying to make me something I’m not. You all know I am a bastard, Edgar; putting me in a fine dress with — with a ribbon in my braid and a blush on my cheeks — that cannot fix it. It never could.”

In a rush on an exhale: “Oh, is that — but no one  _ cares _ about that sort of thing. Father loves you. I love you. And the court hardly  _ matters _ , ——, that’s—”

“I wish,” Edmund says coldly, “you would stop calling me that damned name.”

Edgar startles like Edmund’s hit him. He opens his mouth; his lips form the shape of the first syllable; he chokes on it. He inhales, tries again, reaches for Edmund’s hand, and suddenly their fingers are twined together and there’s an abhorrent sort of lump in Edmund’s throat.

“You are a fool, Edgar,” he snarls, glaring at Edgar even as he clutches his hand. “You are nothing but a fool.”

The room is dark enough to swim in, quiet enough to drown in, and Edgar’s hand is cold where Edmund clings to it, and Edgar says nothing, nothing at all.

Then, very softly: “So teach me.”

Edmund takes a great breath like he’s been held underwater. He runs his free hand through his hair again, revels in the shortness of it, the lightness. “You are a fool, if you think so,” he says, “and you are a fool if you think you or Father can make me that but I am.”

“My sister,” Edgar says, with blindingly arrogant certainty. Edmund digs his nails into his brother’s skin.

“Your brother,” he says, raising his chin, and holds Edgar’s gaze as best he can in the dark.

Silence.

“Oh,” Edgar says, but he does not let go of Edmund’s hand.

Nor does he drop his gaze. They stare at each other. Edmund resists the urge to let his face twist into an animal snarl. His heart thuds against his ribs; he feels every pulse of blood where their hands are joined, and he wonders if that isn’t what he is, an animal, something rawer than Edgar, something rougher. It is moments like this that make him far too aware of what lies beneath his clothing, the places where his body betrays him, too round and too soft and too willing to bleed. Too easy to tear open. Too easy to overcome with a touch.

“How,” Edgar says, as if he’s stepping on thin ice, “how long?”

Edmund bites off a snarl. “The rest of my life, what do you think?” As if his claim to womanhood will grow back with his hair.

“No, I —” Edgar fumbles. “I only mean — you didn’t tell me. How… long? Have you…”

“I don’t know. Months.” Years, maybe. Years he’s known something is wrong. Only months he’s had an idea of what.

“You ought to have told me.”

Edmund gestures to the dagger cushioned in his cast-off hair. “Do you think it would have escaped your notice?”

Edgar squints, instead, at the curls framing his face. “I do not think it will escape any notice,” he says, “though I am not sure ‘pulled through a bramble bush’ is quite the appearance you desire.”

Edmund scowls. “You may have noticed,” he says, “that it is dark.”

“When Father sees—”

“When Father sees it will be morning and I will know what to tell him.”

“I would have helped.”

The softness of his voice makes Edmund’s stomach turn. “You say so like I should have known. As if a bastard self-made brother is what you always longed for. As if you would have known what to do. As  _ if _ the court has ever known another of my — of my  _ disposition _ —”

“I am not such a fool as you think,” Edgar says, without a hint of bitterness. “The king has many knights. Perhaps you would be surprised.”

He is. He has never considered he might not be alone. “Very well, then, none of our  _ stature_.” The word comes out blade-edged. They share no stature. There is only what Edgar has and what Edmund does not. 

__

“And what of it?” Edgar says softly. “No good man ought to care about such things.”

__

Edmund suspects he’s hit dead center. The members of Lear’s court are a great many things, good not numbered among them, and this, at least, Edmund believes he shares with them. But Edgar — starry-eyed night-wandering noble-hearted Edgar — would not,  _ could _ not believe as such, because to believe as such would ruin him.

__

Edmund does not intend to tell him, anyhow. Not when Edgar is still holding his hand.

__

Not when Edgar is a good man. Not when, inherent in his words, is the answer to the question Edmund has not dared ask him outright.

__

Edgar inhales, as if to go on, and then he hesitates. “What… what shall I call you? Then?”

__

And that brings Edmund’s thoughts to a grinding halt.

__

He tightens his grip on Edgar’s hand until he sees his brother wince. Half order, half plea: “Do not laugh.”

__

The words themselves make a half-smile play about Edgar’s lips. At Edmund’s steely glare he banishes it. “I will not laugh.”

__

“Edmund. I should like my name to be Edmund.” As soon as the words escape he looks anywhere except Edgar: to the ceiling, to the floor, to the shadowy corners.

__

“Edmund,” Edgar repeats, and Edmund’s chest tightens, but all Edgar says is, “I rather like it.” He squeezes Edmund’s hand, and when he shifts, for a moment — just a moment — Edmund believes he might hug him.

__

But he doesn’t. He untangles their fingers, pulls away, rises. Over his shoulder: “You ought not to worry about Father. He loves you.”

__

Edmund knows better. Edmund knows very well what their father will think of this; if he ever calls Edmund by his chosen name, it will be miracle enough that Edmund will take up prayer. But then, that is the problem: that Edmund always knows better; that Edgar has never had to. He supposes this scandal will occupy the court for a while. He supposes he is the illegitimate son in more than one sense of the word, now.

__

He sits abandoned on the floor and tries not to miss Edgar’s touch.

__

Across the room a candle flares to life.

__

“What are you doing?” Edmund scrambles to his feet, gripped by the sudden conviction that Edgar is off to wake their father.

__

But Edgar only smiles at him, angling the light to get a good look at his face. “I’m going to fix what you’ve done to your hair. I can’t imagine why you felt the need to do it in the dark.”

__

Edmund is not used to telling his brother the truth. It tastes strange in his mouth: “I couldn’t bear it anymore.”

__

Edgar nods like he understands, even though he cannot understand, and before Edmund can decide if that ought to bother him, Edgar levels the candle at him and says, “Edmund, are you wearing my trousers?”

__

“No,” Edmund says instinctively. As if Edgar hasn’t recognized them. And as if he hasn’t had to roll the legs up twice.

__

“ _ Edmund _ ,” Edgar says, a little indignantly — and then he frowns and repeats, “ _ Edmund _ . Edmund, that sounds like my name.”

__

Edmund’s annoyance dissipates like mist.

__

Perhaps he can be irritated by Edgar tomorrow.

__

“You  _ are _ a fool,” he says, “you are  _ such _ a fool,” and Edgar squeaks a little as Edmund hugs him.

__

He always goes statue-still when they touch; it’s like he’s never learned to hug anyone back. But after a moment he brings his arm up around Edmund’s shoulders, and very gingerly pats what is left of his tousled hair, and in the dark Edmund is brave enough to cling to him and press his face into his brother’s shoulder.

__

In this moment he does not care what their father will say, nor the court, nor the king himself. He does not care, either, what sort of body his clothes hide, or that his voice is still as high as the princess Cordelia’s, or that even with his hair cut short he resembles a woman. He does not care. If not by birth, no matter; he shall make himself a man.

__

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @butchhamlet where i chase my own tail in circles like a dog about shakespeare! or alternatively follow me at my writing blog @goose-books where i'm writing a king lear retelling with lots of trans people yell heah


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